Ad hoc vehicle network system
A computer-implemented method for controlling a vehicle communication network comprising a plurality of nodes at a site, where at least some of the nodes are vehicles operating at the site. The method includes obtaining environment data indicative of a geometry of the site; obtaining position data indicative of respective positions of the nodes; modelling respective communication channels between interconnected nodes in the vehicle communication network based on the environment data and the position data; estimating respective signal quality metrics indicative of a communication link quality between the respective interconnected nodes based on the modelled communication channels; and controlling relative positions of the vehicles at the site based on the signal quality metrics and on a pre-determined signal quality acceptance criterion.
1 . A computer-implemented method for controlling a vehicle communication network comprising a plurality of nodes at a site, where at least some of the nodes are integrated in vehicles operating at the site and wherein the vehicles constitute one or more interconnected node pairs in a daisy chain, the method comprising:
obtaining environment data indicative of a geometry of the site;
obtaining position data indicative of respective positions of the nodes at the site;
modelling respective communication channels between interconnected nodes in the vehicle communication network based on the environment data and the position data;
estimating respective signal quality metrics indicative of a communication link quality between the respective interconnected nodes based on the modelled communication channels, wherein the signal quality metrics represent a signal fidelity; and
controlling relative positions of the vehicles at the site based on the signal quality metrics and on a pre-determined signal quality acceptance criterion in the form of a predetermined fidelity, wherein the controlling of relative positions comprises sending instructions to one or more vehicles to change velocity to reduce or to increase the relative distance between the one or more interconnected node pairs if the respective signal quality metric does not meet the pre-determined signal quality acceptance criterion.
2 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the position data is obtained using a global navigation satellite system.
3 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the position data is obtained using dead reckoning from a reference location.
4 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the environment data is based on collecting vehicle sensor data of the site.
5 . The method according to claim 1 , comprising determining a number of vehicles required for desired coverage of a predetermined section of the site.
6 . The method according to claim 1 , comprising controlling which node is connected to which based on the signal quality metrics and on the pre-determined signal quality acceptance criterion.
7 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein inter-vehicle communication is based on radar transmission.
8 . The method according to claim 1 , comprising adapting an antenna beam of at least one vehicle based on the signal quality metric.
9 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein one node of the vehicle communication network is an access point comprised in a separate wireless communication network.
10 . A non-transitory computer readable medium storing program code for performing claim 1 when said program code is run on a computer or on processing circuitry of a control unit.
11 . A control unit for controlling a vehicle communication network comprising a plurality of nodes at a site, where at least some of the nodes are vehicles operating at the site, and wherein the vehicles constitute one or more interconnected node pairs in a daisy chain, the control unit comprising: processing circuitry; a network interface coupled to the processing circuitry; and a memory coupled to the processing circuitry, wherein the memory comprises machine readable computer program instructions that, when executed by the processing circuitry, causes the control unit to:
obtain environment data indicative of a geometry of the site;
obtain position data indicative of respective positions of the nodes;
model respective communication channels between interconnected nodes in the vehicle communication network based on the environment data and the position data;
estimate respective signal quality metrics indicative of a communication link quality between the respective interconnected nodes based on the modelled communication channels, wherein the signal quality metrics represent a signal fidelity; and
control relative positions of the vehicles at the site based on the signal quality metrics and on a pre-determined signal quality acceptance criterion, by sending instructions to one or more vehicles to change velocity to reduce or to increase the relative distance between the one or more interconnected node pairs if the respective signal quality metric does not meet the pre-determined signal quality acceptance criterion.
12 . A vehicle comprising the control unit according to claim 11 .
13 . A site control center comprising the control unit according to claim 11 .